This is a demo of using the Morph transition to achieve a great visually animated style. This is also a real client project, with all details cleansed for public viewing. We used 2 different Morph transition options to achieve different visual effects so we could show the same timeline twice during the meeting with different animation styles (Full disclosure: Each Morph option needed different slide layouts for the effect to work, which is detailed below). The key to these animated timelines is there are NO animations used anywhere on the slides, all motion is achieved solely with PowerPoint’s Morph transition effect.

For this project, we developed wonderful, stylized, information slides – over 150 in the final Sales Deck. For this blog post, I am pulling one example of 2 timeline layout options where our design team provided slides showing different ways to layout the provided content.

In this case, we did not completely understand the intent of the slide so developed the timeline with two different layout styles, each supporting a different visual message. Our client provided input on the intent, we modified one option and moved on to the next layout question.

A quick sample slide from a recent presentation makeover. After reviewing the content we determined the real message was an abstract timeline of tasks being promised as part of the new business setup. Rather than show a bullet list, the same information was recreated in a timeline visual.

Timelines are a staple for presentations. But memorable, content applicable, and legible timelines are not. Here is a timeline developed for a recent client that tied in with the visual style of the presentation and emphasized the key message with animation.

The timeline was spread across two slides to make the design (and modification) easier. In the full presentation there were several on-click animations to coordinate with the speaking points and the slide transition acted as one of the clicks to advance to the next point.

I know I have covered this as part of other tutorials, but here a quick recap of this highly useful trick.

Here is the situation: you want to create a “waterfall” animation for your text (where each line fades in, overlapping the previous fade in animation). You apply the animation, view timeline in Advanced view and go to slide each animation bar but get frustrated with it jumping around…
Try this: click on the word “SECONDS” at the bottom. Choose “ZOOM IN” and do this 2-3x’s. Now the animation pane has been zoomed in and the animation bars are much wider – making it easier to slide them precisely where you want!

When you need to fine tune the animation timings, you need to display the very powerful Advanced Timeline. When you open the animation pane, which do you see:
With the advanced Timeline you can see the duration, start and end for each animation in relation to the other animations. For advanced animation needs the WITH PREVIOUS setting is utilized more and the animation start position and duration are adjusted with the Advanced Timeline (as example when a subtle overlapping animation is needed).
To see the Advanced Timeline, click any animation and choose SHOW ADVANCED TIMELINE.

There are some good examples of the advanced timeline in use on the Tutorials page.